


An Exercise in Trust

by Deansbaby



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 21:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6300253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deansbaby/pseuds/Deansbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't technically a fanfic but it's a story I wrote based off of a picture of Kathryn Newton :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Exercise in Trust

Each time my worn out converses make contact with the old wooden staircase I hold my breath, careful not to make a sound. Every morning I play Russian roulette, never sure which step is going to be the one that sends a screech through the silent house and wakes my mom up- I usually lose. With just 3 steps to go, I can almost taste an overdue victory. I risk another step- not a peep. I breathe a sigh of relief. Just two more now. My foot hesitantly descends towards the second to last one. But premature excitement is my downfall again as rubber sole and wooden floor board collide and trigger an alarm of creaking wood to awake my sleeping mother on the couch. I groan.  
“Kat? Kat honey is that you?” I hear her slur from the living room. Reluctantly, I force myself to go see her. I walk in the room to what I find pretty much every morning, her slumped over on our stained and torn up red couch in her clothes from yesterday with empty beer bottles littering the floor. She tries to lift herself up when she sees me. One thing you should know about Brenda Walsh is that she no longer expects much out of the world so you shouldn’t expect much out of her. Since my dad left she’s been nothing but wasted hookups and beer bottles so that’s the extent to what I expect out of her, I’m done getting my hopes up for people who always seem to let me down.  
“Yeah mom, it’s me,” I try to say sweetly as clench my teeth and begin collecting the sticky glass bottles in my arms. “I’ll go make us some breakfast,” I tell her as I pat her on the shoulder. She nods and lays back down, knotted blonde hair falling in a mess over her face. I cross the hallway over to the kitchen and drop the bottles in the sink, adding to yesterday’smess. Upon opening the pantry, I discover that we still have nothing but bread, peanut butter, and some rice- not that I’m really surprised. I pull out the bread and peanut butter, grab a knife, and mechanically get to work preparing breakfast.  
“Breakfast!” I shout, setting the paper plates on our rickety old table that sits in the corner of our kitchen.  
“Bread and peanut butter again? That’s all you ever make lately,” She complains, slumping down in her chair and taking a bite. I hold back my frustration by taking a bite myself.  
“Yeah mom well it’s all I can afford to get us lately. Maybe if you got a job…” I pause, knowing she’s about to go off on me. It’s always the same fight.  
“Me? Get a job? No, no you know I can’t do that. I’m not fit for a job. Getting there on time, having that much responsibility for something… no, a job would put too much stress on me. You don’t want your mother to be stressed do you?”  
“No, of course not. I understand.” I manage to get out.  
“What about you, huh? How about you get a job for us. You could work at the grocery store or maybe the gas station,” She helpfully suggests. “I mean, it’s not like you do anything around here to help us out, so you could go out and make us some money.” Instead of answering her I just get up from the table, I know if I say anything right now I’ll regret it later. I scrape the remains of my bread into the trash and run upstairs to gather my things for school. I’ll get there a little early if I leave now but it’s fine. Any where’s better than here to be quite honest.  
~  
Leaves crunch beneath my feet. People’s voices create a buzz of noise in the back of my mind as they gossip about who stole whose boyfriend and how awful that girl’s outfit is. Sun shines in my eyes, causing me to squint. It’s always funnythinking about my eyes- well, maybe ‘funny’ isn’t exactly the right word for it, perhaps ‘weird’ or ‘unsettling’ would fit better. My mom always tells me I have bright blue eyes just as beautiful as my dad’s, always tells me that’s why she can’t stand to be around me too much, because I remind her too much of him. But how could I look just like a man who could do something as cruel as walk out on his own family and leave them with nothing? How could I bare any resemblance to someone so heartless? I wish I had green eyes. I’ve always loved green eyes. My best friend Grace- well, ex-best friend now, I guess- has green eyes. They’ve always reminded me of lush forest, bursting with life, or the tops of the trees, so open and free. But no, I have blue eyes, eyes that keep me tied to a man I wish I could erase. Every time I look in a mirror I am reminded that I can’t get rid of him, no matter how hard I try. He’ll always be a part of me and I hate it. I hate him. And not like a hatred for broccoli, or saying you hate some girl at school because she annoys you or is mean and you don’t like her. I mean a raw, burning hatred that sits in my chest and consumes me. Except, I don’t know, maybe I can’t hate him. It’s not like he every treated me poorly directly. All he did was leave.  
I scan the crowd looking for my friends who should be hanging out at one of the lunch tables that are scattered around behind our school. Much to my dismay, my eyes instead happen to lock with Grace’s, who is sitting a few tables away from where I’m frozen in place, distracting me from the task at hand.We only hold each other’s gaze for a moment but it’s a moment long enough to let hurt register in her eyes and guilt in mine. I quickly tear my eyes away from her and spot the people I was actually searching for.  
“Heyyy look who it is!” Andy draws from his spot on top of the table. He grins and runs one hand through his thick black hair, leaning back to rest on the other one. He’s kind of the leader of the group in a way. He orders people around and supplies us with everything and takes us to all the good parties. Plus, with a sleeve of tattoos and a cigarette constantly hanging from his pierced lips, he’s by far the most intimidating. He’s the one who first approached me about a year ago, right after my dad left. I was being pathetic and showing emotions while sitting against the brick wall of the school, away from the mob of people. He found me, didn’t ask questions, and insisted I take a drag of his cigarette. He waited until I had collected myself and shoved all my feelings back in the cage where they belong and then took me to introduce me to his friends. It’s been kind of like a vacation hanging out with them, they don’t ask questions about my family or who I am, they just let me sit and hang out with them and take me to parties. I hop up next to him on the table and drop my bag in the grass, leaning into him as he kisses me on the cheek. He starts to lean in for more but I stop him.  
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” I tease, shoving him off of me.  
“Kissing my girlfriend hello, what does it look like?” He replies, trying again. I push him away again.  
“Hold up, who ever said anything about me being your girlfriend?” I ask, earning a collection of ‘ooo’s from the table. He drops his head and chuckles, settling for pulling me on to his lap instead. I can feel him playing with the holes of my faded blue jeans that expose my pale knees as we sit and talk with everyone. “You guys didn’t hit up any good parties without me while I was away did you?” I ask, half teasing, half hoping I didn’t miss out on anything. I took a week off school last week because my mom was doing even worse than usual and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her home alone. Of course, she yelled at me for skipping school, but I have a feeling that if I hadn’t skipped I would’ve come home one of those days to find her dead on the floor, whether it was from drinking herself to death or passing out and hitting her head.  
“Nah, there was nothing worth going to. We just hung out at Mikey’s since his parents couldn’t care less,” Angie answers. Besides Andy, I’m closest with Angie. I don’t know if it’s because we’re the only girls or because we share a similar fondness for Panic! At the Disco, but we bonded pretty quickly. Well, bonded as in we go off on our own and talk about bands together when we all hang out. The deepest I’ve gotten with sharing personal stuff with her is just telling her that my dad left and she told me that her brother died. Other than that little drunken slip up, these guys seem to steer clear of my personal life which is a nice change for once.  
“There is one tonight though, if you wanna come,” Ryan says, throwing his arm around Angie as he leans around her to talk to me. Ryan seems like the most mature and innocent one of the group. I’ve never seen him pick up a joint and he always stays sober so he can drive us home, I kind of think of him as our dad.  
“Yeah I’m down,” I’m ready for a much needed break from being home. “As long as YOU are driving,” I say pointedly at Ryan as I see Andy open his mouth to say he can take me. He smiles as if to say ‘of course’. It’s a well-known fact that one should never get in a car with Andy, even if he is sober. For the rest of the day I keep my plans for tonight in the back of my head as the girls around me torment my ears with chit-chat, gossip, and giggles and teachers drone on about how our school work should be our number one priority to prevent me from smashing my head repeatedly against a desk.  
~  
“Where do you think you’re going?” My mom asks me condescendingly as she sways a bit trying to stand in front of me and a few drops of beer slosh out onto the wooden floor. I suppress an eye roll and continue curling my blonde hair. She grumbles something and walks back down the hall to her room. She’ll probably fall asleep and then wake up in a few hours and start calling around the house for me. And when she doesn’t find me she’ll fall back asleep on the couch. I sigh and look in the mirror. My hair is done nicely, even though it’ll be a wreck as soon as we arrive due to close proximity I will be in of the rest of the wasted idiots, and I’m wearing a short tight dress I borrowed off of Angie. The top is black, the middle is bright green, and the bottom is pink. My eyeliner is heavy and my lips are pink. My black heels could gauge someone’s eyes out. I look like Angie. The me from a year ago wouldn’t recognize me now. But that’s okay because that girl died a long time ago.  
When we get to the house of whoever’s hosting tonight everyone disperses except for Andy and I. He keeps a grip around my waist as he drags me from room to room as he greets people. I stay silent and clutch a beer that someone handed to me when we walked in. I look around and realize I know no one in this packed room besides Andy. And no one knows me. It’s a Friday night and I’m smooshed between my maybe-boyfriend and some sweaty guy I don’t know as everyone gets high and drunk and I stand like an obedient little puppy at my maybe-boyfriend’s side as he walks me around like I’m on a leash. I’m surrounded by people but they’re all strangers. They’re all trying to drunkenly talk to me and none of them even know me name, let alone the first thing about me. It’s a room full of my mom and I’m slowly morphing into all of them. The room starts to shrink and the blue walls seem to come closer. I twist myself out of Andy’s hold and take a step back. He looks at me like he knows he should be confused or worried but he’s too drunk already to actually care. I shove bodies out of the way and run upstairs, praying there will be less people up there. In a twist of events, luck is on my side and the hallway is virtually empty minus a few people milling around, but they’re so out of it they probably don’t even realize I came up. I sink to the floor and take a deep breathe. I sip my beer, something that usually allows me to escape messy, annoying feelings and thoughts and escape for a bit. But tonight it just seems to keep making it worse. I feel a hand on my shoulder.  
“Hey, are you okay?” I hear Angie’s voice next to me. I see her sit down beside me out of the corner of my eye. “You know, you can talk to me.”  
“No, it’s nothing,” I begin to assume my usual battle position I use when protecting what goes on inside my head. But then I look at Angie and she looks so sincere. “Actually, it’s everything.”  
She puts an arm around me and pulls me against her and lets me cry into her shoulder. I cry longer and harder than I ever have since the day my dad left. Once I’ve calmed down, she does exactly what I need her to. She rubs my back and then leaves so I can be on my own.  
After a while I get myself up and begin exploring all thedifferent rooms while thoughts and feelings that I buried deep inside of me so long ago bubble up and run rampant. If I focus on them too much it will overwhelm me but if I rebury them it will just get worse so I just let them be free. And it’s surprisingly liberating to my mind. One of the rooms I wander into has a window on the one wall that’s slightly cracked open. I walk over and slide it up, letting the chilled night air hit my face. Cautiously, as I am in heels, I maneuver my body out the window and lean my back against the wall that extends out andstretch my legs out and rest them on the little ledge that extends from the window sill. I sit for I’m not really sure how long, staring up at the stars. A little tiny part of me wonders if my dad might also be looking at the same stars. But the more practical part of me reminds the delusional part that he’s probably too busy looking at his new family that he loves so much. I turn my head back inside the room and am shocked to see a familiar face staring at me with bright green eyes and a small smile.  
“Grace?” My heart begins to race.  
“Hey Kat,” she says softly, walking closer to the window, the soft breeze blowing locks of her short brown curl in her face.  
“What are you doing here? This doesn’t really seem like somewhere you’d want to hang out,” I joke weakly, unsure of what to say right now. She laughs, her gentle little laugh that rings out and fills the room with a sense of joy.  
“Yeah, you’re right, it’s not. But after I saw you today, I just needed to talk to you. And I heard about this happening tonight and figured this would be my best bet.”  
“I miss you,” I whisper. It feels like admitting a secret that I’ve been trying to keep from even myself over the past year.  
“I miss you, too.”  
“I’ve missed your laugh, your smile, the way your hair falls in your face and your cheeks turn red when your embarrassed, the way you tug on your earlobe when your nervous, I miss everything,” It’s like a dam broke and everything I’ve wanted to say for months is all pouring out with no rhyme or reason, everything struggling to come out at once. “I’ve missed being able to talk to you. I’ve missed being able to talk to someone who knows me and actually cares,” As I say this I realize it’s true. All this time I’ve spent pushing away anyone who could possibly care about me because I didn’t want to end up like my mom to the point of standing in a room full of strangers. All this time and I could’ve just let people in. I could’ve just let them care. I could have let Angie in earlier than tonight. I could have kept Grace, the one who has always been there for me, close instead of trying to shove her out the back door.  
“So,” She says, sitting down on the floor on the inside of the window, facing me. “Let’s talk then.”  
And we talk. We sit and talk for hours, about everything that’s happened since my dad walked out. All the words I’ve kept under lock and key escape their cage and run out. And it actually feels good to say things allowed that I tried so hard to ignore. At some point Angie joins us by the window and we talk about her brother with her and we talk about Grace’s anxiety. We just talk about everything and by the end of the night everything is off of our chests and a weight has been lifted from deep inside of me.


End file.
